take care of yourself for me
by kangeiko
Summary: River has a crush. Written for the Multiverse challenge, River/Talia.


**take care of yourself for me**

**

* * *

  
**

**Author:** Kangeiko

**Recipient:** Leyenn (in the Multiverse fic exchange)

**Rating:** R

**Fandoms:** Firefly & Babylon 5

**Thanks to:** S, T, E and L for beta-reading, support and plasma-science.

**Summary:** River has a crush.

**Author's Notes:** The title is one of the many meanings of the azalea flower, which is also the Chinese symbol of womanhood. Chapter titles come from the Roger McGough poem, _Five Ways to Help You Pass Safely through a Dark Wood Late at Night_.

* * *

_1. Whistle a tune your father whistled  
when you were a child_

_

* * *

  
_

Oftentimes now, she pauses on the walkway beneath the crew quarters and listens to Wash and Zoë couple. She does not mean to, and understands that they would be angry with her if they knew. _It ain't right, you listening in like that,_ Zoë would say; and Wash, his cheekbones stained with colour, _girl of your age and, er, age, ought to find someone to go crazy with. Oh, look, a planet._ And, lao tian, that would be the lightest thing said onboard for days, for their beloved _Serenity_ is no longer a happy ship. River wonders if it ever was; if this heartsickness is something that has always existed out here in the black and she simply did not notice. She feels an ache in _Serenity's_ side, as if a rib is missing; as if she is incomplete.

(She is.)

Inara left precisely eighteen days, three hours and five minutes ago.

It is four months after she first told the Captain she would be leaving, and almost one whole year from when Simon hid a locked box in the hold and added two more ribs to _Serenity's_ bristling ribcage.

It would have been easy to find out why Inara left, but _Serenity_ shuddered beneath her at the thought and River stopped up her ears. "Not listening," she said, as Inara unwound her perfumed silks, gathered up her rustling skirts and dresses and wrapped the delicate porcelain tea set in heavy travelling linen. She kissed each and every one of them goodbye. "Not listening."

(Kaylee cried.)

Inara left a book on River's bunk sometime before she left; a heavy, bound tome from Earth That Was. When River returned to her room, she clasped the book to her chest and inhaled its scent: crisp paper and pressed flowers.

Afterwards – she is not sure when, but it could not have been more than a tenday hence – Shepherd Book declared his need for a pilgrimage.

_Coward,_ Jayne said angrily as Book left, and stormed back to his bunk. Ruttin' coward, running away like that.

River knows better. Inara's gift reveals to her the secrets of those left on _Serenity_; a code book able to unlock the darkest cipher. She is sure that there is another reason for his flight, and pores over her new gift to find it. She thinks that perhaps it has something to do with Inara, and perhaps something to do with their latest job. Book has never asked about the details of their jobs _ante facto_, and had never cared to hear them should someone offer. He has Thoughts on Theft that capitalise and enumerate themselves in her head. _Thou shalt not / Thou wilt not / Thou sayest /_ and again and again, until she aches from it.

There is no joy to the ship anymore. Inara is gone, and Book is on pilgrimage and their latest job is going well. There is a crate of shiny black metal with strange gold symbols in their cargo bay.

(She is not allowed there. Mal said so and Jayne said so and even Simon said so. She. Is. Not. Allowed.)

Oftentimes now, she pauses on the walkway beneath the crew quarters and listens to Zoë and Wash couple. Wash has beautiful hands, fine-boned and long-fingered, and they worship the secret places of Zoë's body with an ardour that steals River's breath away.

When she touches the cold metal of the handrail to steady herself, she feels the sting of blood in her mouth - copper and salt and pique - from the second time Jayne struck her.

"You ain't got no ruttin' cause to be droppin' no eaves on me, girl," he said afterward by way of apology, and wiped his hand across his belly before pulling her to her feet. "You ain't gonna do that no more, dong ma?" And his seed had glistened wetly across his bare flesh.

River's mouth hung open at the after-image of sensation the brief contact produced: Jayne's hands on Jayne's body and, more: she could feel his hands on her own body, on body parts that did not, could not exist – scrotum, foreskin, prostate; slick with oil and regret – and the confusion this stirred in her. Yes, just _there_, and his/her whole body shuddered.

What is the flower of desire?

When she opened her eyes, Jayne's fear of her was scrawled across his face, plain as textbook or scripture. "Pretty," and she reached for the beaded wetness on his belly.

He caught her hand in one of his, warm bruising muscle over her skin. His fingers curled around the bones of her wrist and she could feel his heartbeat - thin, erratic - seep in from the heat of his thumb and forefinger. "I ain't your gorram _toy_, girl," and he spun her away from him in one swift movement, like a kite on too loose a string.

Sprawled on _Serenity's_ metal deck, she slowly righted herself. "You should tighten the string, or I will fly away," she informed him solemnly and spelled out rebellion with her steps.

River understands the biology of desire, though she cannot comprehend its manifestation. Bereft of data, she screams with frustration.

(Inside only: she knows better.)

She knows of gametes of glistening strings of pearls; she knows all the functionings and poetics sex, reproduction and coupling could hope to have. She knows of babies and orgasms and understands endorphins and serotonin. She does not, cannot, could _never_ (never?) comprehend the quale of _want_ that drives Wash to Zoë, and only Zoë, but she equates it to watching Jayne lift weights in _Serenity's_ belly, her sweaty palms twisting her skirts into knots.

She is not sure if this started months ago, with the Saffron thief's visit, or if it was merely the apples on her bunk. It does not matter.

The apples came to her - though not to _Serenity_ - before the Saffron thief, she is sure. They spilled across her bunk in halves and quarters and tumbled across _Serenity's_ empty streets and alleyways like bells in a locked box, tumbling this way and that to make what some might call 'music'. They buried Simon and Kaylee, smothering them in the sticky juice of their desire. They rolled across the plating – trip and tumble – until, at last, River followed them down to where the pillows lay.

She had known for a while that she would have to do something to stop them. She tried eating them all up, but they filled her to bursting and in the end it was Simon catching her hands to stop her clawing her face and nothing more. _No, mei mei, don't -_ but she didn't know _why_.

She had tried with him, tried because he was there, and because he was her brother, and because he tried to love her. She had tried to coax Shepherd into wedding her to her brother, and categorising, one by one, the cornucopia of hormones and endorphins and thoughts that she cannot explicate. _It had merely been a hormonal imbalance precipitating a psychotic interlude,_ she thinks, ordering the information in annotated rows. She understands, now, Simon's horror and his abrupt, staccato explanation of ways-that-are and ways-that-are-_not_, and she had been good to not mention Ahmose and his sister bride.

(She had not been well, now that she thinks on it.)

She understands that she does not comprehend. He loves her so, her brother. Just not in _that_ way.

(What way?)

One day, River gorged herself on fruits and blossoms and still felt an odd hollowness in her belly. That was the day that that Jayne brought a crate of them on board and stuck his knife in one by way of invitation. He hoisted them into the cargo bay and soon the entire ship had been suffused with the tart scent of his guilt.

I'm going crazy, River thought, and perhaps it was true. Soon it was a howling winter in _Serenity's_ hold, and a scorching summer in the kitchen, and she could not block the torrent of emotions from those loved ones around her.

(Even Jayne, though he would not let her listen when she asked.)

Balanced between handrails, River stretches her arms for balance; a bird caught in flight.

Beneath her feet, the apples tumble across the metal deck and _Serenity_ hums, low and needy, at the flush of desire deep in her belly.

* * *

_2. Cross the first two fingers  
of your left hand_

_

* * *

  
_

She is not allowed near the pod. In fact, the Captain has placed a blanket ban on her entering the cargo bay unsupervised and Simon had tried his best to explain why.

"It might be dangerous, mei mei. That pod has been sealed for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, and everything inside has been kept _in_, all that time. There might be diseases or, or, booby traps, or –"

River had stopped listening then, her eyes fixed upon the gleaming black metal. It seemed to her that it was more a coffin than anything else, though she knew it for what it was - a cryogenic suspension pod from before the Burn - but no one had yet asked who was inside.

"It's Snow White," she had said, and Simon had fretted at the seeming non-sequiter and her agitation, and had given her another dose of thiothixene to calm her restless mind.

She understands Simon's reasons and his concern, though she is tired of soothing him by offering her arm for a syringe-full of solutions. She understands Jayne's reasons, for the coin would be great and he does not trust her with their precious cargo. She even understands the Captain's reasons, because this much coin would be enough to buy some shiny new tech and maybe tempt Inara back home. (And _Serenity_ would be happier, though none were to mention it aloud.)

She understands it all. Human minds are characterised by autonomic comprehension: touch fire to one, and all learn to avoid it, but only one learns _why_. _Like a house of cards, all bright and shiny through the doorways and alleys, but it just takes one red apple tumbling down the street, and the whole deck falls down._

When River first saw the pod hoisted on board, she wrapped herself around it and pressed her bare hands against the exposed scrollwork, tracing an unfamiliar gold symbol with cold fingers. She could feel the phantom echo of a heartbeat flutter beneath her: a cocoon trapped in amber. _How odd,_ she thinks, _that no one would think to open it up and put its doomed sleeper to rest._

How odd, to have such a large coffin for such a small life.

She is fascinated; there is no denying it. The ancient secrets of Earth That Was are lost forever. Now there are no cry chambers that can be used for more than a few days. (There are tales told with 'thee's and 'thou's and 'ye olde's of the technology of Earth That Was and the endless sleep of heroes, but she does not listen to such nonsense.) She is comfortable in the solid world of facts, where cryo is a poor man's choice and your chamber can double as your coffin.

Cryogenic suspension, her mind recites, cannot be used for more than a mere few days. It is fact. The ice crystals in the brain would rupture cells and disrupt neurons and leave it all as so much jelly. Deep in the cloisters of Academy, River had not thought it such a bad fate, embracing the risk for the slim chance of freedom. And yet she cannot help but think of those old stories, of princes and princesses slept for thousands of years beneath the peel of apple-red planets, their dreams plagued by angels with white fiery wings and scuttling spiders with glowing eyes. (No, she knows enough to know it for a myth and nothing more.)

But this... It is magnificent.

The cryogenic chamber - a long-distance escape pod of sparse lines and smooth black metal - is thousands of years old; an artefact from a forgotten time. How bright it is! How clean the lines and elegant the design! As sleek as a fish, with skin as tender as spider's silk – oh, yes, she is fascinated beyond the power of any interdiction. How could she not be, when there is a seed from Earth That Was in _Serenity's_ womb, clinging to the remnants of life.

_Serenity_ was in a deep slumber, contentment humming through her vitals, when River slid out of bed and padded, barefoot, to the forbidden pod. For a long time she simply stroked the cool metal, hands sliding across welded locks to find the smooth, defenceless belly of the beast.

Hello, she thought, and smiled. She could almost imagine that a response might come if she could only ::push:: hard enough. Her eyes fluttered closed. ::Hello, bao bei.::

There was a faint ::hiccup:: beneath her fingers and for that instant, River's world was as it had always been, and finite in time and scope. Then –

::...?::

It was thready. Hesitant.

But it was definitely a response.

River jerked her hand away from the pod and took a step back. Fear flooded through her; ice in her veins, as potent and strong as sweetest absinthe. _The ice crystals in the brain would rupture cells and disrupt neurons and -_ Her head shook frantically from side to side. It was madness. It _must_ be. There could be no response.

She pressed her balled up fists to her eyes and let out a distressed wail.

_There was no response,_ she told herself desperately.

Maybe, she hypothesises, there is no _person_ there, merely a body alive but for the quirks of a science that lets cadavers breathe and simulate life. _There. Was. No. Response._

::Hello?:: Even fainter now, and frightened, the discordant note in _Serenity's_ symphony was not coming from any direction, or even the pod itself, but echoing inside River herself.

"It's a hall of mirrors," she whispered, and covered her mouth at the cacophony of disjointed thoughts and images.

No cadaver, River thought, could ever sound so terrified. It could not be - it could _not_ be - just organic matter, with random firing synapses and mush instead of a brain. It could not be a living mummy from millennia ago, its mind atrophied and dead; no, nor even an insect trapped in amber, forever almost-moving. She tasted bile on her tongue as she reached out a trembling hand towards the pod.

A response, River thought, and ::heard:: a hiccupped probe stretch out, like a flailing hand. Lao tian, she thought; lao tian, there was definitely someone inside their latest cargo.

Hidden by the bulk of the pod, she pressed herself against _Serenity_'s comfortingly cool walls and contemplated what to do next.

The self-inside-the-pod was keening with distress.

_This is what Simon feels when he looks at me._

She shuddered in fear and took a deep breath. ::I'm here.::

Faint whispers, like autumnal leaves scattered on the deck. ::Who are you?:: If River is not careful, they will crumble underfoot.

::I'm River. Do you know who you are?::

There was a long hesitation. ::Talia,:: the answer came at last, slow and thick, like wading through molasses. ::I think... I think my name is Talia.::

But River had made too much noise in her fright - or perhaps Jayne had been paying her more attention than usual - because he was suddenly _there_, walking down the gangway with thunder in his eyes.

She pressed one last fleeting touch to the cool metal. What could she do but promise sanctuary, despite her fear? Had not her bao bei done the same for her? And had not the Captain, though he had not known her and had not been bound to her by love nor fear? And would he not do so again, for this lost miracle? (And Inara and Book, she thought, would be rightly pleased.) ::You're going to be all shiny and new real soon, Talia. Just sleep a while longer.::

Jayne reached her in three steps and she snatched her hand back. He caught her by the elbows and pinned them back against his torso, lifting her bodily into his arms. "You know you ain't supposed to be near the cargo, girl. You're in so much trouble," he purred, positively delighted at the prospect.

"But it talks to me." She twisted in his grip, fingers reaching for the pulse points. "I want to stay here."

"Yeah, like that'll happen. I'm getting you away from it 'fore the gorram thing blows up or something. I don't want to be dealing with the Doc and explaining why there's girl parts all over the gorram cargo bay."

She paused at this startling new development. "You are concerned for my safety. I understand. But she really is very nice, you know, and I promised to make her all shiny and new." She twisted again, kicking at his legs. "Put me down, Jayne, I need to introduce you!"

"There ain't no one there, you gorram crazy girl," and he was dragging her up the gangway. "Quit your wriggling, will you? I'm just taking you to the Cap'n."

If two people are talking, and one does not believe the other is there, who is to say that they are? "Formalities!" She shrieked, desperate now, frightened that the chain would break and that the voice inside the pod would go away. "Pleasantries! I must initiate an introduction to facilitate social intercourse - let me go, you hwoon dahn!"

"There ain't no gorram voice, there ain't no gorram aliens or whatever crazy-assed thing you reckon is in there, and there sure as hell ain't no gorram intercourse, social or otherwise. Now you watch your pretty mouth and quit your wrigglin' and whinin' 'fore I redden your behind!" And he wrapped an arm across her torso to restrain her.

She could have broken free, but it would have cost Jayne broken bones. She thought of how he had not broken any of hers when he had slapped her away, and stilled in his arms.

The pod was silent: metal and meat and nothing more.

The tart scent of freshly-cut apples pervaded her nostrils as she pressed back into him.

"She was in the cargo bay, playing. _Interferin'._ I'm telling you, the Doc needs to keep a better handle on 'er."

"Jayne, he's not gonna to lock her up every time we get a job."

"Well, now, maybe that _is_ something to talk about. Peace from a pump, Mal, she's been hanging around too much, getting underfoot-like. And with the cargo an' all –"

"She's awake," River said. ::I woke her.:: She can feel the second tongue in her head stir, rusty from disuse. How could she not use it all this time, when it was so _easy_?

The tumult of voices ceased for an instant and she shuddered as it restarted. She can end entire conversations with a few words and wondered if she had been misnamed. Perhaps she should have been called Rock, or Stone, or Dam; the thing which divides and diverges and destroys. _I am Become Death:_ there is a fork in the water, moving entire streams of thought from one direction to the other.

'River' is an entirely too unifying an appellation. She wondered if she has simply outgrown it.

"I ain't gonna let her lose us all that coin just 'cause she's a gorram freak," Jayne scowled.

There is too much noise in her head for her to ::hear,:: like _Serenity_ is full to bursting. She can feel the dull buzz of someone sleeping – _like a baby in the womb might feel,_ and she pressed open hands to her belly – and, amused that no one else can hear it, she laughed.

"I woke her up; the sleeping Snow White." Hands still wrapped around her belly, she rounded on Jayne, who took a step back. "I think we should make her spit out the apple."

Jayne's eyes widened as he stared at her cupped hands; his gaze slid past the curve of her pubis to rest across the flat planes of her stomach. "Fei fei de pi gu, girl, don't you go saying stuff like- I don't know what the gorram hell she's talkin' about! Mal!" He turned towards the Captain; suddenly a boy in need of reassurance.

She could reassure him.

She could feel Talia's ::voice:: echo in her head and the knowledge was intoxicating. If she could ::push:: just a little bit more -

She felt the need burst open inside of her, loosed through her eyes and into his. Her mind uncoiled like a ball of yarn and suddenly she was _wearing_ him, as Inara wore her silks and pretties. A Jayne-suit, with Jayne-needs, and Jayne-fears.

(She's shaking with the ache of it.)

"Mal!" She said and Jayne said, in perfect union. "Mal, I never touched her, she's crazy!" S/he was thinking that s/he had always known that gorram bitch of a girl would be the death of him. (In the cargo bay, locked behind the plexiglass, his hands had been ruttin' cold as he'd waited for Mal to let him go, and all he could think was, I got stupid. I got stupid. He won't do it again, but he knows - he had always known - that she could pick up a knife or a gun or whatever, and maybe wouldn't even know it as she sliced them up into bloody ribbons.) There was a dull ache in his stomach, and s/he was startled to realise that it is guilt.

::Tastes like too many apples,:: s/he thinks, but that was a River-thought, not a Jayne-thought.

When she wriggled herself free of him, Jayne was left staring at her, mouth open and eyes disbelieving.

All of a sudden, she was desperate to drown out the thready beat of his heart. (She wondered if this is what guilt is. _Reavers,_ she would have thought had she come across it in the black. _Reavers took his soul._) Her words were hesitant as she started to speak, her tongue thick in her mouth. "There's a girl in _Serenity's_ belly. Sleeping in a coffin, like a pupa in its chrysalis. Captain," her hands flitted, sketching out sleep and communion and truth with quick flicks of her fingers, "Captain, we need to wake her." River gathered up her skirts, her knuckles worrying the fabric of her dress, and would not meet Jayne's eyes. "I spoke to her. She's all woken up in her head; we just have to make her spit out the apple and she'll be all shiny and new." She turned to look at Mal. "If you don't wake her up, if you sell her, they will do to her what they did to me. And _you_ would have helped do it." She was certain, and truth coloured her voice, though she was not rightly sure who 'they' are or what was done to her in the first place. It does not matter.

Something had changed when she touched a hand to the girl's coffin, and she can ::push:: to make it so. _Simon, bao bei, I'm all woken up,_ but he would only worry. (She will not, she will _not_, it is unconscionable.)

"She knows things. Things she shouldn't. Things she couldn't." (Jayne's pupils contracted to pinpricks, because those were Mal's words in her mouth, rich as red duck stew on her thickened tongue.)

She. Will. Not.

(She wondered if she was lying, or if wishing could make it so.)

Sitting quietly at the breakfast table, River willed herself to normality. Too many empty seats: Wash was flying the boat, and there was no Book; no Inara. Even Kaylee was busy doing something else. (She was readying the pod for thawing, though River remembered to not voice this while the others conversed.)

The bottom line, as it were, was that Mal would not turn slaver, no sir.

"If there's someone alive in there, I sure as hell ain't gonna turn them over to our Institute buyer."

"But, Mal, there ain't no one in there an' -"

"Captain, I do think that there might be a danger from whatever organisms entered stasis with the body-"

"I thought you were a doctor, _Doctor_; don't you wanna know whether you're turning another girl over to them charming folks at Academy?"

"But it's crazy, there's no chance anyone could be alive in there! Not with a- a- functioning brain, or anything not resembling jelly!"

"River says she heard her."

"Heard her _speak_?"

River said nothing.

"Heard her - in her head. She's a reader, Doc, and the sooner you stop denying that, the better off we'll all be. I'm thinking that this needs some testing, and if there really _is_ someone in there, we'll know for sure."

"Yeah, risk all that coin for some gorram crazy's make-believe. No, no, I'm all for it."

"Captain, I don't think -"

And so on and so forth, until she had memorized every single line on her palms and watched Zoë do the same.

In the end, Zoë finally offered an opinion and everyone shut up for it.

"I think we should open it up, sir. I'm not comfortable with handing over something like that if there's a chance there's someone stuck inside."

Her eyes lingered on River as she spoke and her husky voice echoed in River's head and River had not pushed, not a bit. She had thrown up earlier, at the feel of Mal inside her head and she will not push anymore. It makes her sick inside. (There was no choice.) Zoë was a-mindful of all the possible threats that could come from inside locked coffins and the thin, reedy feeling of guilt - bitter as bile - was back in River's mouth. _A boy with dead eyes, and a voice from beyond his death and so, so stupid to not_ see -

She shook her head and closed her eyes and abruptly the images stopped.

Zoë was looking at her, curious-like, her brow furrowed. But she did not retract her vote, and so they took the pod to the infirmary.

(River kept a hand on its skin the entire way there, and no one noticed that Kaylee had already prepped it for the thaw.)

When they finally prised the lid open, hands slippery with sweat and fear, River exhaled her breath in one long rush of relief.

Inside the pod, swaddled in a nest of clothes and accoutrements, was a girl with skin as pale as snow and hair the colour of a winter harvest. She was naked. Frozen. Thousands of years old.

And very much alive.

* * *

_3. If you lose sight of the moon  
hold it in the mind's eye_

_

* * *

  
_

River is dreaming.

It must be some time after dinner, she thinks, disoriented, for she vaguely remembers the meal. The thaw would take some hours yet, and River had sat herself next to Jayne at mealtime and waited until the others finished up. _Serenity_ is splintered, she thought: Inara and Book away, Simon in the infirmary, Kaylee below decks and the Captain fretting, and she revelled in the freedom of none remembering to check on her.

She tapped the centre of Jayne's chest to get his attention, fingers drumming across the numb-line inked in scar tissue. _Tell me what the Captain said about Snow White, Jayne,_ she demanded and caught his wrist as he rose to leave. _Tell me, Jayne, and I'll stop teasing you about your girl's name. Tell me, Jayne, and I'll stop teasing you about your man-parts. Tell me, Jayne, and –_

And he had not believed a word she said, but had smiled, teeth and malice. He said, _your big yap has landed Mal in a real pickle, girl._ Slaver or stranded, that was where curiosity had gotten them. And where were they gonna get the coin to buy gas if Mal was gonna get stupid and let that po fu go? Had she thought of that, or was she so ruttin' keen to be back in the cold again?

She could ::hear:: his anger echoing through her. _Shoulda never opened up that ruttin' box. Every time we do that with any gorram crate, some po fu is inside, mucking things up. Lao tian ye, we should just shoot the things on sight._

She stroked his arm in comfort.

We had a detour, don't you remember? There was a job, and Simon would have had to wake me 'fore we got off the ship in either case, she said. No choice, Jayne; I would'ave always woken up here. And she smiled. It's karma, bao bei.

Don't call me that, he growled, and his face flooded with colour as he jerked his arm out of her grasp. And eat your gorram food.

When River slides into Jayne's lap and his hand hitches up her skirts, she knows that it is later, and that she is dreaming.

It does not make it any less real.

_Serenity_ wavers and dissipates; only smoke and mirrors after all. All River can see are the clean, sparse lines of gunmetal grey and ebony and gold symbols and crosses hurtling through space, and there is not a single apple in sight. ::This is not my dream,:: she thinks, startled, and pulls out a knife from her dress.

Jayne's blood puddles to the floor.

::Go left,:: she tells him as he stares at her, slack-jawed, hand over the bleeding cut. ::Go. Left.::

_"- left! Jesus, Red 1, go left, you have three, no - four, oh, Jesus, _five_ 'furies on your tail! Break off, break off!" A man's voice yelled into the call system as he manoeuvred his ship for a good shot. (She is pressed against the plexiglass, transfixed by the bursts of colour outside.) It's no use; Red 1 was ducking and weaving in an erratic course its pursuers relentlessly followed. He couldn't hit any of them without taking Red 1 out. _

_A woman's irate voice filtered through, "I can handle it!" _

_Stupid! If she would just break off, Red 3 could move in... Oh God, she was going for it, she was going to flip the 'fury, but at these speeds that's suicide - "Red 1, let me take them! Your trajectory's too sharp and we're too close to planet-side; you'll burn up! Repeat, you'll burn up, let me take them!" _

_"Just gimme ten more seconds, I can shake them!" _

_"Red 1, move, let me take those bastards out!" The nearest raider to Red 1 caught on to her attempted move and tried to anticipate. The starfield burned bright for a single moment as the attacking ship pulled itself apart at the seams, ions screaming in its wake. _

_Red for oxygen; red for death... _

_A hand grabbed her elbow and started dragging her unceremoniously down to the launch bays. ::What do you - let me go!:: _

_::You're going to the launch bay, Miss Winters. We need you in an escape pod. It's long-distance, cryo-fitted, state of the art; I promise you won't feel a thing. Someone will pick up the beacon and come for you soon.:: _

_::I can be valuable in a fight!:: _

_::Don't argue! I'd rather be blown to pieces by them than by our own side for having lost you.:: _

_::They wouldn't -:: _

_::Do as you're fraggin' told!:: _

_The rest is a blur of darkness and silence. She felt the dull ache of zero-G as she tumbled through space, and wondered if the sharp splintering pain had been that of impact. After, all she felt was the silence: an eternity of nothing stretching out before her with no respite. _

_When she could gather enough of herself to think, she wondered why no one had come for her yet. _

_She wondered what year it was. _

_She wondered if she was dead. _

_As the whispers in her dreams faded, she stopped thinking altogether. _

_A universe passed out of existence._

A red apple rolls across the red dirt. When Jayne's knife splits it open, it weeps crimson, tart juices and, lao tian, she is so gorram _hungry_!

She's still dreaming, she thinks and instantly wakes. She is still dreaming - and it is now a lie - and when she wakes, the bright shiny pod in _Serenity's_ belly will be cold and dead and only metal, and there will be no bright-eyed girl with sun-spun hair. She's still dreaming, because the alternative means that she's crazy.

::I'm sorry,:: and she ::feels:: it, ashes on her forehead; a rush of emotion from Elsewhere, from To The Left, A Little Above, from - she knows now - the infirmary; and not words but what she herself uses to express the cacophonous flood of discordant thoughts. ::I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to see all that.::

Talia is awake.

River's hands are cold and clammy and her bedclothes stink of sour sweat and fear.

Mal had them all meet up in the kitchen again, for breakfast and whining and, presumably, Laying Down the Law. (Simon held her hand to stop her from fidgeting.)

"Now that we're thawing her, I reckon that it's best we keep her on board for the time being; leastways until we can find someplace to leave her safe."

"So we ain't ruttin' getting paid? All that gorram _work_, and no coin?"

"Jayne -"

"No!" Jayne was openly glaring now. "No, I want my say. We're damn near out of gas again, Mal; Wash has been keeping us going on prayer beads and ruttin' cheap go se. And if we're out of gas, Cap'n, we can't get no job. If we ain't got no job, we can't get no coin. Lao tian ye, Mal, if we ain't got no coin, what the ruttin' hell are we here for?"

Wash raised an eyebrow. "is it just me," he drawled, "or has Jayne got a point? Several points, in fact?"

"Wash, you can't mean for us to _sell_ that poor girl!" Kaylee stared in disbelief.

"Wuh de ma, that ain't what I said. All I meant was, it ain't as easy as it's being made out. I can't make _Serenity_ go on air, Kaylee." He raised his arms in exasperation. "Not that it would make much difference out here if I could, but you take my meaning."

"It ain't a discussion, Wash; Jayne. We can't just _sell_ the girl if she's normal-like. Or even if she ain't, it just plain ain't right, is all."

"Oh, but getting grounded – that's just _peachy_!"

How could they look but not ::see::? "You're all mice," River said, and laughed. "Six blind mice."

"What's she on about?"

"Mei mei, maybe –"

"Why's it a choice between slaver and stranded?" Zoë interrupted. She had been watching River carefully the entire time, eyes following River's hands as she shook herself free of Simon and sketched out the rise and fall of empires with her fingers. Her eyes were calculating.

The bickering menfolk all shut up and River laughed again.

"What's that, lambie toes?" Wash swivelled in his chair.

"Why's it a choice between slaver and stranded? I don't recall making no deals for a pod and contents. In fact, if I rightly recall, no contents were mentioned at all." She leaned forward, bracing herself on her elbows, smiling wide and slow. "Deal was for the pod, Cap'n. Nothing else."

There was a long silence.

"Well, I'll be..."

"_Five_ blind mice," River amended, laughing at the look on the Captain's face.

"Fine," Mal said, and put his hands together. "That's – fine, Zoë. We'll do that. Doc, how's about you get her all thawed out and we'll see what's what."

"No, look," Wash said anxiously, "I'm not sure that waking her up is such a good idea. I mean, we don't know where she's from or what being in cryo for that long has done to her. She could have turned animal-like. Shouldn't we wait and maybe give her to some nice Core doctor?"

"Animal-like?" Zoë raised an eyebrow.

"If the girl has been damaged mentally in some way, she'll enter a catatonic coma once revived. She's not going to jump out as a – a – proto-Reaver. And, for the record, I _am_ a nice Core doctor!"

"Shah muh? The girl could be a ruttin' _Reaver_?" Jayne looked up, his hand immediately going to the nearest weapon on his torso.

Wash swivelled in his seat, agitated. "Are you even _listening_ to the conversation?"

"I'm listening a-plenty, little man; I ain't the one rooting for waking up the crazed popsicle."

"Well, neither was I!"

And so and so forth, until River stopped listening, wondering what she could say or do to make the Captain look her way.

_No, no, there is no purpose to it. You've eaten your fill of apples, there is no purpose to it._

She's not going to ::push:: anymore.

(Except that she can close her eyes and remember the touch and feel of the Captain's mind. She can trace its grooves and swirls, looking for the one large enough to sustain a seed. There: just _there_. If River does this, he will trust her unconditionally.

She looks at the seed in the centre of her palm and considers just one more ::push:: of seed to fertile ground. Just one more.)

"I reckon we need to wake her first. If she's gone in the head, we need to know, 'cause that has all other things attached to it. And if she's _not_, I ain't handing her over to anyone, especially not Core Alliance."

(The seed is very small.)

"Well, the thaw is coming along well. In a few hours, we could attempt to bring her out of the artificial coma. Afterwards, I could update you on –"

(It would burrow to the centre of whatever plain in it is dropped in – even in a landscape as hostile to her and as fascinated by her as Jayne's liquid desire – and it would take root immediately. She will not lie: she has thought about it. Just one small seed, ::pushed:: into the fertile soil.)

"No," Mal said. He turned to look at River, looking her directly in the eye.

_He knows_, she thought, startled, and the knowledge did not displease her. _He knows I can ::read:: him._ The whisper came to her then; a song from long ago. _Line of sight..._

(It would bring up shoots in mere seconds. She could have an entire tree: roots, blossoms and fruit, all.)

"River, there's plenty crazy I don't get, but you've done no wrong for this boat and you knew right enough about Saffron and Jubal Early. I want you to have a chat with that there girl and figure out if she's normal-like; whether we can set her loose." If she ain't right, River, we're gonna need a reader to figure her out 'cause _I_ sure as hell wouldn't know which end to start on. And there sure ain't no guarantee she don't mean us harm.

It had not been ::said,:: but she ::heard:: him all the same.

There are flowers scattered across the dining table; masses of white chrysanthemums, bittersweets and red tulips. In the language of the ancients, these are all the flowers of trust and truth and constancy, blazoned across _Serenity's_ decks in subtle, delicate hues.

River has never seen any of them before.

"Yes, Captain," she said.

(She closed her hands tightly around the ::seed::, breathing low and even as it crumbled to ashes in her hands.)

Some time in the night, River woke before the chime of the intercom echoed through her room. There were flowers on her bunk, vying for space with the bushels of apples. River had become used to kicking them aside in order to climb out of bed in the morning.

This morning, though, she did not notice the debris of life littering her room. She could feel something strong and cold and foreign stir within _Serenity_, and it made her shiver. The 'it' – and it must be Talia, for who else could it be? – was familiar, yet somehow... not. She shook her head. _I can't ::hear:: her,_ River thought, and shivered in apprehension._How come I could hear her in the pod, but not out here?_ And again, the old song, _line of sight..._

She had been dreaming of a mountain, jutting out into a red horizon. And there had been an apple, a golden-red apple hanging low on a tree in full bloom, silk-soft, silk-thin, silk-broken azaleas crowning it in glory. _I never planted the seed, and the azalea tree doesn't bear fruit,_ River thought crossly, upset by the non sequiters, and the dream faded in her grasp.

Frustrated, she dressed quickly with sharp, jerky movements and ran to the infirmary. Halfway there she stumbled and almost fell, thought, _how odd that I should ... stumble ..._ and fetched up against the bulkhead, retching as her world spun. Jayne's thoughts wrapped around her, like thick woollen clothing. ::Thank Christ River's not here. Can only deal with one ex-popsicle crazy at a time.::

She shook herself and recited to herself lists of flowering trees until she could breathe again. The azalea tree is tall, she knows, and stronger than her. She can close her eyes and taste sap and pollen on her tongue; blossoms in her mouth.

(No. No. She will not touch. She will not listen. _You've no right,_ she remembered; _I ain't your gorram_ toy. She will not listen.)

When she finally reached the infirmary some time later, the door was closed.

It did not matter to her; she does not need to be inside to feel all those within (and is angry at herself for lapsing and ::hearing:: Jayne when she did not rightly mean to). Focus, she thought. Focus, or all is lost. When she closed her eyes, she could ::hear:: the dull horror and wonder radiating outwards. _This is what 'awe' must be_, and all she could see is a red mountain breaking the horizon until there was nothing more.

(Kaylee was saying, lao tian, lao tian, over and over again and shaking her head, and though Simon said nothing outside of, "hand me that vial," River could ::hear:: him thinking it just the same.)

River pressed herself flush to the wall, one bare hand against the metal as she ::reached::. Talia's mind felt numb to River's ::touch::, as if it had not quite thawed.

Talia's hands were tight around a metal badge and her fingers trembled as she traced the gold symbol on its surface. "How long was I - the battle is over. I heard it. But it's... it's been a while." Her speech was slow and halting, and her mind ::felt:: full up of cotton wool. "I was... I was sleeping. Someone woke me..."

"River woke you," Kaylee said, fairly bursting with pride. "She knew you were alive, right enough, and she said – oww!" Simon had stepped, all accidental-like, on her foot.

Talia said nothing for a moment, her face a mask of concentration. ::RIVER?::

It was as loud as a foghorn and River started. How odd - sight and scent; the prickling of a baby's foot to make it cry. She felt the weight of insistence close around her and could not help but shake at the intensity of it. She knew what Simon would say to it; the solutions he would pump into her body.

She is tired of solutions. ::You don't have to shout; I'm right here.::

::I wasn't sure. I mean... I wasn't sure I'd not dreamt you. Until they said your name, I thought... I've been asleep for a long time.::

::Like a princess.:: River leaned against the closed door, tracing the metal grooves of the doorframe with idle fingers and smiling. ::Like in fairy tales; like Snow White and her shiny red apple.:: She touched a pale finger to the bright red button marked _jin lai_ and laughed as the door slid open. "Asleep for millennia."

"River, there you are."

Her brother's hands were gloved and full of syringes, and it is a measure of how discomforted she was that it was not the focus of her attention. Instead, all she could see was the tiny form on the infirmary bed, swaddled in white hospital linen and as pale as a corpse. "I found her." Finders keepers; she knows it well enough. "She's mine."

"Mei mei..."

"Hey, if we're callin' dibs –"

"Jayne –"

"Mal, I'm jus' sayin' –"

(And Talia is still smiling at her, thousands of years old and with lips as red as blood and skin as pale as moonlight and suddenly River can breathe once more.)

"How long was I asleep?" Talia asked, voice husky from disuse. She looked from one face to the other and settled her gaze on Kaylee. "How long?" Her hands were perfectly still in her lap.

"You're been in there a good long while, sweetie," Kaylee said gently. "Not like... it's not been a coupl'a months."

"More like Ice Ages," Wash said, sotto voce, and River nearly laughed at Kaylee's panicked face.

The mechanic put her fists on her hips and scowled. "Wash! You're not helping!"

"Wait, how is this my fault again? I didn't put her in the thing for donkey's years!"

"She's probably traumatised, the poor thing, and you're not making her feel welcome."

"_I'll_ make her feel welcome."

"Jayne!" _I should just gag him and be done with it,_ and the Captain had no place to be speaking inside River's head; no, not at all.

"What? I didn't do nuthin'!"

"Aww, sweetie, ignore him, he's just been dropped on his head one too many times."

"I'll drop _you_ out the ruttin' –"

"Jayne. Your mouth is open. Sounds are coming out. You might want to look into that." The Captain raised an eyebrow and Jayne fell quiet, scowling.

River reckoned that, eventually, the Captain would have quietened everyone down enough for her to actually do her job (and the thought sends a delighted shiver down her spine, for she had lately thought herself good for nought but running, and killing) but there was nothing to it, for Talia had gone back to sleep.

"She's... well, hopefully, she'll be all right. It's not like I have a test case to work from. I'll be carrying on with the current treatment and - could everyone go and be elsewhere?" Because, really, there were far too many people crowding the infirmary.

The Captain got them all to "go do a job, will ya?", and River stayed behind, unnoticed by all but him. She raised her chin as he stalked past her, and he gave her the tiniest of nods.

In her mind's eye, an azalea tree was bearing spring flowers and late autumnal fruit, low-hanging and tempting to the mouth and eye. All River would have to do is stretch a little.

She thought this over.

_I reckon that's fair enough._

_

* * *

  
_

_4. Imagine the colours that surround you  
waiting for the first kiss of morning_

_

* * *

  
_

Talia had been onboard and mostly unconsciously for about three days when it occurred to River that she had just woken up.

River had been carefully arranging the food in a tableau that took account of colour and purpose and height and smell in order to facilitate their happiness. Yawning, she regarded the bright yellow mustard pot with great disappointment and chided, "buttercup, buttercup, is this a game?" (In lieu of flowers, she had been forced to improvise.)

The mustard pot, being a mere flower-substitute, gave no answer. River turned herself outwards, gently ::reaching:: for her brother. Talia was awake and he would want to check on her, she was sure.

Simon, for his part, was sound asleep.

Not that odd, really, as he had been working without rest for some time now. Perhaps she should let him sleep.

She yawned again, surprised at her lethargy. Kaylee was also asleep. And Zoë. And Jayne. And the Captain. All those left awake were Wash at the controls (and he was nodding off), Talia in the infirmary, and River in the kitchen, rearranging condiments.

But it's early yet, River thought, and yawned again.

Perhaps the oxygen mix was off?

(Perhaps – and thought was unpleasant – perhaps it was merely _she_ who was tired? She had felt herself ::slip:: more than a few times in the past few hours, and wondered at it, unsure as whether she was building up to something – or winding from it.)

Unhappy and unsure why, she decided that it was close enough to a mealtime for her first visit to their new guest.

She tapped on the doorframe and peered in. "I'm allowed to be here," River said, by way of introduction. "The Captain said so." She held up the tray of food she held. "I brought you sustenance."

Talia was still wrapped up on the infirmary bed, hooked up to monitors and IVs. Her skin was waxy and pale under the infirmary lights, almost greenish in tint, and her hair was thin as freshly-gathered straw. Her gloved hands were stark against the hospital linen. "Hello, River. I was wondering when you would come to see me. I've been looking forward to speaking with you."

"You have questions. I understand." River carefully set the tray down on a stool, pulling it to within Talia's reach and balancing plates and cups and teapot across the white expanse of bed linen. "I am prepared for the interrogation."

Talia laughed. Her throat sounded as if someone had taken one of Jayne's whet stones to its insides: red-raw and weeping. "Well, would you sit with me while I eat first? We can move on to the thumb-screws later." She waved a hand to indicate the metal tray loaded down with bow and green tea. "I'm still amazed at all this real food. It's been a very long time since I had anything non-synthetic."

"We mostly have processed protein, but Simon said your system is not equipped to digest it to an adequate degree and so Kaylee and Wash have been taking turns to cook. Simon said –" She frowned. "Oh. Kaylee said it weren't right to discuss bodily functions during dinner. She said it was unappetising."

Talia covered her lower face with one hand as she smiled around her mouthful. "I will not inquire further, then."

"The others don't like me watching them eat," River continued. She steepled her fingers. "Jayne says it's a creepy-assed thing to do. Even Simon doesn't like it. He doesn't say it, but I can tell."

::I'm not like the others.:: Talia said, mouth full of bau. River watched her jaw work independently of ::speech::, positively fascinated. ::And I would appreciate the company. I have not had the opportunity to really talk with anyone here. And I think that I would like to. Just... talk.::

"And ask some questions."

Talia laughed softly. ::Yes, I suppose that's true.:: She touched the corner of her napkin to her mouth and folded it back down in her lap. "For one thing, I've been here for days, and no one has told me how long I was in cryogenic suspension. I've not really seen anyone except the doctor, and all he keeps saying is that I should rest a while, and that they will tell me later. It is beginning to frustrate me." She sipped her tea and set it carefully back on the counter.

"They're sleeping," River said after a long beat. "And you could just ::push:: when you ask. You'd know then." She was watching Talia deftly manipulate the chopsticks with gloved hands, as if the black leather was a part of her skin. "I do, all the time."

Talia's hands froze. "All the time? It's involuntary?"

River shrugged, busy rearranging Simon's vials into a happier position.

"I'm sorry," Talia frowned, "but I find it very difficult to understand why help has not been sought if the situation is this bad. You're on a ship, not stranded anywhere; why haven't you stopped at a Corps planet and simply _asked_ for guidance?"

"_Serenity_ doesn't go to Core planets any more if we can help it. Too much Alliance there." She traced the outline of the metal tray, thinking how odd it was to hear such a suggestion now. Time was, it would have been the first thought to _her_ mind, too.

Now...

Now she was using all of her skill and strength and all her abilities to not simply ::speak:: to Talia, or, rather, to ::know::. She had concluded that ::knowing:: someone was really quite disagreeable, but the weight of the Captain's trust was growing with each passing moment – garlands and crowns of scented petals - and she could hardly breathe for it.

What was she to say to the Captain when he asks? _I don't know if she's a threat, I don't know if she's normal-like. Sometimes she is and sometimes she isn't and sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not and I can't always tell one from the other. We are too much the same._

Things were in bloom everywhere River looked, which made no sense because it was clearly harvest time. How else to explain the bushels of apples? And yet, there was a garden amidst the stainless steel and fired clay, blooms thick and heavy and underfoot; a carpet of flowers throughout _Serenity's_ empty decks.

She has been deathly afraid for some time now, for she was convinced that she has been going mad.

Had she truly made everyone sleep, like the Briar Rose of Earth That Was; like she had almost made the Captain trust her? She could blame it on hormones and endorphins, she knew, and was tempted. She could file it all under a side effect of a lack of amygdala and ignore it until she was inside them all the time – Simon, Jayne, Kaylee, Wash... She could ignore it until she wore them as skins and they were nothing more.

She was suddenly horribly sure that she was going to be sick.

Talia crouched up on the bed, worrying the IV in her arm and kicking the bedcovers away. :: River, I won't hurt you, it's all right. It's all right. See? You can look if you want -::

And Talia took both of her gloves off, palms up.

If River opens her eyes, she will see the entire infirmary awash with the greenish glow of an apple's juices and the red discarded peel of its primary skin. _It'll grow another skin,_ she thought hysterically, then, _no; it can't, it can't, it'll wither and die. _

There were garlands of flowers strewn over the infirmary floor; monkshood and orange mock and snapdragons and _these are not her thoughts_.

Talia's mind is playing tricks on River, and if River opens her eyes, she will see why: a bed of white roses signifying silence, and warnings, warnings all around. _These are not her thoughts._

Something is hurting Talia: something old, something cold; something sleeping. It is clawing at her, this beautiful princess asleep for millennia; it is tearing her open in its rage at the interloper. At River.

The azalea fruit is bitter in River's mouth and in her belly. It burns.

(She cannot bear it.)

Then, Talia's voice, soothing and honeyed through the pain, ::it's all right, River. It was just a noise, a mental noise, and it scared you because you had not heard it before. Like – like if you were a newborn, and had never seen light before, or heard sounds. You'd be frightened by this great big new _sense_ that was positively overwhelming. But eventually, you'd learn how to use it, do you see? You could – you could block things out from your hearing, or squint to see things better. It's the same here. There's nothing to be afraid of, River.:: Talia was still perched on the bed, her legs tucked under her and the IV finally loose. A small trickle of blood escaped from her open elbow and she pressed one naked fingertip to the skin just above the wound. ::It's just like hearing, nothing more.::

_It's not,_ River thinks. It is more than just hearing or seeing or tasting – it is all of them at once, if you had never experienced the world before. Not just your world, but the worlds of everyone else: all their hopes and fears and the different shapes and hues of their fruits and flowers until she was full to overflowing.

She has woken a miracle and is now watching it wither before her eyes.

::It's all right, River. Breathe. I can help you. Like this, like _this_. Breathe.::

Gasping, River took a long shuddering breath – and another - and brought her arms down hesitantly. "Babies can hear things in the womb," she whispered. "That's... that's what I thought, when I ::heard:: you. I thought you were a baby, in _Serenity's_ womb. And I could talk back. My mother told me, when I was little and didn't know about babies, that she used to play music for me before I was born, and that's why I turned out smart."

Talia stroked her hair. "And do you think that's true?"

"Doesn't matter. I'm not ever going to have babies." She looked down at herself and the bruises slowly forming across her legs from where she had knocked into the stool. They bloomed purple and green and blue and yellow; a garden of colours across her skin. "I think I'm getting worse," she said slowly. "Simon puts solutions in me, but he can't put them in my mind. And I can't be as smart as everyone thinks, because I can't fix it myself." She rubbed a hand across her face. "I know you want something of me. I know you made the others sleep to ask. Does it... does it help, what you want me to do? Will it help me stop?"

Talia stared at her helplessly, and abruptly River remembered that Talia had only been awake for less than three days. "I don't know. I don't think that it happens instantaneously, and I would not recommend it instead of an Academy education."

River went rigid all over and she bit down on the ::cry:: that threatened to emerge.

"The Captain says they're never going to let Academy take me back. The Captain promised. Simon promised. _Serenity_ promised. I don't ever have to go back to the hands of blue."

Talia blinked and tried to process this. "You ran?"

"I ran. They're still running after me."

They stared at each other.

After a moment, Talia sighed. "I don't know what the situation there was, River. _My_ Academy would have looked after you. But that was some time ago and I – I don't even know if we're talking about the same things." She gestured at the ceiling helplessly. "I still don't know what year this is, or where we are, or where we're going, or how I'm going to get back home. I don't – my God, I don't even know if 'home' exists anymore. And I can't help you by saying, "yes, go to Academy," when you're rogue – when I don't even know if that has meaning any more! All I can do is show you what _I_ do, and hope that it is enough. And you're right. I have many questions."

River hesitated for one second longer, then took a good look around the infirmary and its weeping, dying flowers. She extended her hands. ::I want to look, now. I want to be able to see.::

Talia nodded. ::All right.::

* * *

_5. Keep a Smith & Wesson in the glove  
compartment_

_

* * *

  
_

There was no instantaneous revelation when they touched, as River had been half-expecting. Instead, there was a faint spark, like the afterimage of static electricity (_like Jayne,_ River thought). Her eyes fluttered closed. ::Where did all the apples go?:: The corridors and rooms were sparse and bare. There were gold symbols hung high, and polished black towers of stone and steel in the distance. The only familiar thing was the red soil underfoot; when River looked up, two moons were high on the horizon. ::Where are we?::

The answer came from beneath her feet. ::We're on Mars. My home.::

::I thought your home was on Earth.::

::It was. It is. But Mars is just as much my home. There is another place, too, but it is far from here and this will serve well enough.::

::There are no apples here.:: She looked around, at the huge expanse of open redness with a mountain (::Olympus Mons,:: something whispered) and amended, ::but the planet is _like_ an apple.::

The planet – the place? – laughed. ::Yes, I suppose it is. Now. Are you ready?::

The ground rumbled and River took a step back as a brick and mortar reassembled itself in front of her. She looked at the redbrick wall curiously, hand against the red stone, and slowly tipped her head back. The wall was infinitely tall, yet did not block out the sun. ::Optical illusion,:: she thought.

::No. Optical illusions require eyes. This is a mental impression of an optical illusion. Do you understand the difference?::

The wall was speaking to her. Its voice was smooth as fish scales to the touch and sounded remarkably like Talia.

River stroked the wall and felt it shudder beneath her fingers. ::Yes,:: she said, realising that she understood and shaking with her triumph. ::What's that?::

The wall had dipped and opened beneath her fingers. It revealed an open plain where a red azalea tree in flower bore a ripe golden-red apple on the red Martian soil. The branch hung low and heavy, red leaves swaying in the breeze. Crimson sunlight glinted off the apple's flesh.

River reached up and the ground shuddered, throwing the tree branch upwards, out of her reach, as if the world itself had taken exception to her curiosity.

::What is it?:: River asked, and thought, _I've seen this tree before. I've seen this place before._ She could taste the fruit on her lips, orange blossoms and blue salvias; gifts of the dead.

The Martian landscape was rich with colour, black roses on soft beds of moss. _Charity_ River thought. _Death._

In the middle of it all stood the azalea tree, dripping with blossoms the colour of autumnal sunshine and fruit that smelled ripe and pungent with desire.

Talia was dying.

::It's just a tree, River.:: There was soft amusement in the thought. ::Just a tree.::

River reached out a hand for the golden-red fruit. ::I would like a taste,:: she said, and tree bowed under its own weight.

::Then taste it, it has been yours all along,:: it replied, and the fruit fell into her open hands in a shower of azalea blossoms. She ate of it, juices trickling down her chin, as all around her the white petals of crushed roses floated in the still Martian air.

::How does it taste?::

(What is the flower of desire?)

River smiled, mouth full of the tart taste of herself. ::You said I could look.::

::I did, River. How are you going to get inside the wall?:: She tipped her head to one side, critically regarding the fusion of meat and stone where her flesh met clay. She considered the situation for a long moment. Heat flared in her belly and she cupped a hand there, stroking, contemplative.

(She could feel Jayne's good humour seeping away beneath her fingers as his shirt blossomed crimson flowers. _Everyone looks better in red,_ she thinks; and, _Jayne is a girl's name,_ she thinks.)

Jayne is in the centre of her garden, like the princess in the tower; a rose in a heart of thorns.

River could feel the tartness of the fruit in her mouth and belly, pushing outwards and making her squirm with pleasure. She does not comprehend this fully, but it does not matter. It is near enough, and she is flush with triumph.

She pressed her hand against the red stone. ::With heat.::

The wall melted under her touch and Talia was smiling at her, bright-eyed and so, so tired. She wore a garland of pale pink sweetpea blossoms, each petal dipped in blush.

_Gratitude,_ River read, and could have wept for it. _Gratitude / farewell / blissful pleasure_ and –

_::Thank you for a lovely time,::_ Talia said, ::reading:: the last of the meanings and not sounding the least bit upset. ::How apropos.:: She took a deep breath and threw her arms outward, leaving herself open. ::It's time. Now, River. Do it now.::

River looked down at the gun in her hand.

The physical manifestation of emotional shock flung River backwards. She toppled out of her chair and landed on the cold metal floor with a hard thud, the breath knocked out of her. Scrambling to her hands and knees, she clawed herself upright and reached out a hand for Talia, ears ringing with the deafening wail echoing throughout the infirmary. She looked up.

On the white infirmary bed, Talia's eyes were closed. The various monitors connected to her screeched their distress, flat lines across every single one of them.

There were black rose petals strewn across her body.

River screamed.

"Ren-ci de fo zu, girl, you don't have to scream, I was just outside and heard you just fine." Jayne was suddenly there, Vera heavy in his arms. "Huh. She didn't last long. Should we bother fetching your brother?" His speech was slow and unhurried, as if he already knew the answer.

(There was an azalea blossom carved into his chest.)

He sat down next to her and took her hands in his. "Not sure if there's point in waking the Doc, I reckon. She looks pretty corpsified to me, and he was out of it too, yeah? Your doing?" Scowling, he cleaned her sweaty fingers and forehead carefully, wiping her down as if he had just taken her out of her bath. "_Is_ she dead, then? 'Cause I should prolly call Mal, or somethin'."

River looked up at him unsteadily. "She's dead. She's dead, Jayne, and I killed her. But she – she asked me to! She wasn't ever going to... It was a mirror, an invisible sister waking from the cold and so _angry_!" Her eyes were wide. "Was it wrong to kill her? Is that something else I did not comprehend?"

Jayne shook his head. "Damned if I know it, girl, I thought there was only one of them in there. Didn't know nothing about no sister and if it's some reader thing, I don't _wanna_ know. Anyways, I expect that I woulda done the same in your shoes, if that's anything for you." He inspected his handiwork. "There. All clean."

"Thank you," she said primly.

They sat in silence for a while, before she realised that she had not taken her hands away from his lap. She had not moved at all, staring at the body. Jayne was watching her warily; not frightened, not cowed, just... wary.

"I have apples in my bunk," she said.

"Ain't that the truth." He sighed. "Look, I know what your fancy is, and I ain't normally one to turn down some free tail, but –"

"You don't want me." She pulled a hand free and pressed it to her belly, to the heat there.

Jayne shook his head. "It ain't that, girl," he said, adamant. "But _you_ don't want me. You don't know what you want. And that's fine. That's just... I'm guessing you're playing catch-up, yeah? All them grown-up things you never got to do, you're doing now. And you can't _not_ feel them."

She looked at him, startled.

"Hey, when the Doc says something that ain't complete nonsense, I listen. 'Sides, anyone can see that you were just about ready to hump my leg 'fore the tail showed up." He smiled reluctantly. "Way I see it is, it's probably easier for you to just _ask_, you know? Leastways, I won't get spaced by the Captain for molesting you, or anything. Dong ma?"

She traced the blossom on his chest. _He looks better in red._ "I could just ask?"

"Just 'bout ruttin', mind," Jayne said hastily, brow furrowed. "I ain't gonna be listening to no girl-stuff questions. You go on over to Kaylee's bunk for those." He paused; thought. "And maybe let me watch."

She was openly smiling; both her hands tightly curled around one of Jayne's. She could ::feel:: him beneath her fingers; Jayne-form with Jayne-thoughts and the low, heady scent of azalea blossoms and ripe, pungent fruit. "I'm going to break ship-board protocol and initiate asexual bodily contact."

"Huh?"

She leaned forward, swift and sure, and, slipping under his guard, she hugged him. "Thank you," she whispered into his neck. She ::touched:: him, ever so gently; a quiet mental nuzzling that was almost asexual in nature.

(Almost.)

Beneath her feet, the apples tumbled across the metal deck and _Serenity_ hummed, low and needy, at the flush of desire deep in her belly.

* * *

fin


End file.
